Rhythm of War (9781429952040)

by Sanderson, Brandon

  Kaladin kept moving, almost without thought, spearing the fourth soldier in the neck. There, Kaladin thought as the expected ribbon of red light came darting toward him. He will go for my back again.

  Kaladin dropped his spear, pulled a throwing knife off his belt, and turned. He rammed the knife into the air right before the Fused appeared—slamming the small blade into the creature’s neck, angled between two pieces of carapace.

  The Fused let out an urk of shock and pain, his eyes wide.

  Fire made wood snap overhead, and burning cinders dropped down as the enormous Fused toppled forward like a felled tree, the floorboards shaking with the impact. Blessedly, no red ribbon of light rose from him this time.

  “That’s a relief,” Syl said, landing on Kaladin’s shoulder. “I guess if you catch him before he teleports, you really can kill him.”

  “At least until the Everstorm rebirths him,” Kaladin said, checking the singers he’d killed. Other than the one dying slowly from the gut wound, he’d left only two alive—the one he’d shoved, and the fifth one, across the room, who had activated the fabrial.

  The former had scrambled out the gaping hole in the wall to escape. The latter had left the fabrial and was inching to the side, his sword out, eyes wide.

  The man was trying to reach Godeke—perhaps to use him as a hostage. In the fray, the wounded Edgedancer had fallen to the ground beside the husk after the Fused had teleported to Kaladin. Godeke was now moving—but not under his own power. A small, gangly figure had the Edgedancer by one leg and was slowly dragging him away from the fight. Kaladin hadn’t seen Lift sneak into the room—but then again, she often showed up where one did not expect her.

  “Take him out the hole, Lift,” Kaladin said, stepping toward the last singer. “Are your powers suppressed too?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “What’d they do to us?”

  “I’m extremely curious about this too,” Syl said, zipping over to the device on the floor, a gemstone covered in metal pieces and resting on tripod legs. “That is a very strange fabrial.”

  Kaladin pointed his spear at the last singer, who—hesitantly—dropped his sword and raised his hands. He had a jagged skin pattern of red and black.

  “What is that fabrial?” Kaladin asked.

  “I … I…” The soldier swallowed. “I don’t know. I was told to twist the gemstone at the base to activate it.”

  “That’s Voidlight powering it,” Syl said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Kaladin glanced at the smoke pooling on the ceiling. “Lift?” he said.

  “On it,” she said, scrambling over to the device while Kaladin kept the soldier guarded. A moment later, Kaladin’s powers returned. He sighed in relief, though that made Stormlight puff before him. Nearby, Godeke gasped, unconsciously breathing in Stormlight, and his wound started to heal.

  Strengthened by the Light, Kaladin grabbed the soldier and lifted him up, infusing him enough to make him hang in the air. “I told you to leave the city,” Kaladin growled softly. “I’m memorizing your face, your pattern, your stench. If I see you again, ever, I will send you hurtling upward with so much Stormlight that you will have a long, long time to think during the fall back down. Understood?”

  The singer nodded, humming a conciliatory sound. Kaladin shoved him, recovering his Stormlight and making the man fall to the ground. He scrambled away out the hole.

  “There was another human in here,” Lift said. “An old lighteyed man in beggar’s clothing. I was watching from outside the building, and saw the man come in here with Godeke. A short time later, that Fused broke through the wall, carrying Godeke—but I didn’t spot the other man.”

  Roshone. The former citylord had told Dalinar he was going to search the manor’s stormcellar to free imprisoned townspeople. Though he wasn’t proud of it, Kaladin hesitated—but when Syl looked at him, he gritted his teeth and nodded.

  So long as it is right … he thought.

  “I’ll find him,” Kaladin said. “Make sure Godeke recovers, then get that fabrial to Brightness Navani. She’s going to find it very interesting.”

  * * *

  Shallan removed the illusion, revealing Ialai’s face, spittle dripping from her lips. One of Adolin’s men checked her pulse, confirming it.

  She was dead.

  “Damnation!” Adolin said, standing helpless above the body. “What happened?”

  We didn’t do this, Veil thought. We decided not to kill her, right?

  I … Shallan’s mind began to fuzz, everything feeling blurry. Had she done this? She’d wanted to. But she hadn’t, had she? She was … was more in control than that.

  I didn’t do it, Shallan thought. She was reasonably certain.

  So what happened? Radiant asked.

  “She must have taken poison,” said Vathah, leaning down. “Blackbane.”

  Even after many months as Shallan’s squire and then agent, the former deserter didn’t look like he belonged with Adolin’s soldiers. Vathah was too rough. Not sloppy, but unlike Adolin’s men, he didn’t care much for the spit and polish. He showed his disdain by leaving his jacket undone, his hair messy.

  “I’ve seen someone die like that before, Brightness,” he explained. “Back in Sadeas’s army, an officer was smuggling and selling supplies. When he finally got found out, he poisoned himself rather than be taken.”

  “I didn’t see her do it,” Ishnah said, sheepish. “I’m sorry.”

  “Nale’s nuts,” muttered one of Adolin’s soldiers. “This is going to look bad, isn’t it? This is exactly what the Blackthorn didn’t want. Another Sadeas corpse on our hands.”

  Adolin drew in a long deep breath. “We have enough evidence to have seen her hanged; my father will simply have to accept that. We’ll bring troops to the warcamps to make certain her soldiers don’t get rowdy. Storms. This mess should have been cleaned up months ago.”

  He pointed at several soldiers. “Check the other conspirators for poison, and gag them all. Shallan will disguise the body like a rug or something so we can get it out. Gen and Natem, search Ialai’s things in the next room to see if you can find any useful evidence.”

  “No!” Shallan said.

  Adolin froze, glancing at her.

  “I’ll search through Ialai’s things in the next room. I know what to watch for, and your soldiers don’t. You handle the captives and search the rest of the building.”

  “Good idea,” Adolin said. He rubbed his brow, but then—perhaps seeing the little anxietyspren that appeared near her, like a twisting black cross—smiled. “Don’t worry. Every mission has a few hitches.”

  She nodded, more to put him at ease than to indicate her real feelings. As the soldiers moved to follow his orders, she knelt by Ialai’s body.

  Ishnah joined her. “Brightness? Do you need something?”

  “She didn’t eat poison, did she?” Shallan asked softly.

  “Can’t be certain,” Ishnah said. “I know a little about blackbane though.…” She blushed. “Well, I know a lot. My gang would use it on rivals. It’s tough to make, because you need to dry the leaves out, then make a gum out of them to get it to full potency. Anyway, eating it isn’t the best. If you can get it into the blood though, it kills quickly.…” She trailed off, frowning—perhaps realizing as Shallan had that Ialai had died very quickly.

  Shallan knew of blackbane herself. She’d studied up on poisons recently. Would I be able to spot a pinprick? Shallan thought, kneeling beside the corpse.

  Either way, she suspected Ialai had been right: The Ghostbloods hadn’t trusted Shallan to kill her, and they’d sent a second knife to see the job done. That would mean they had an operative among Adolin’s guards or Shallan’s own agents. The idea made Shallan’s stomach twist.

  And this person was separate from the spy Ialai supposedly had among Dalinar’s elite? Storms. It was tying Shallan’s mind in knots. “Look the body over,” Shallan whispered to Ishnah. “See if you can find evidence
if this was self-inflicted, or if someone else killed her.”

  “Yes, Brightness.”

  Shallan quickly walked back into the room with the wine hutch. Gaz and Red were already working to gather Ialai’s things. Storms, could she trust these two?

  In any case, Ialai’s prediction had proven correct. And it was possible that this room held secrets Mraize didn’t want Shallan to find.

  A bronze cage can create a warning fabrial, alerting one to objects or entities nearby. Heliodors are being used for this currently, and there is some good reasoning for this—but other gemstones should be viable.

  —Lecture on fabrial mechanics presented by Navani Kholin to the coalition of monarchs, Urithiru, Jesevan, 1175

  Kaladin crossed the burning room, haunted by that moment when he’d suddenly lost his powers. The experience left him rattled. The truth was, he had come to rely upon his abilities. Like you relied on a good spear, battle-tested and sharp. There was little worse than having your weapon fail you in battle.

  “We’re going to have to watch for those fabrials,” Kaladin said. “I don’t like the idea of our powers being subject to removal by the enemy.” He glanced at Syl, who sat on his shoulder. “Have you experienced anything like that before?”

  She shook her head. “Not that I remember. It made me feel … faded. As if I wasn’t quite here.”

  He shied away from rooms consumed by the blaze, full of primal shadows and lights, bright orange and red, deep and angry colors. If the citylords had been content with a normal house, this could never have happened. But no, they needed to be set apart, own a home full of delicate wood instead of sturdy stone. The hungry flames seemed excited as they played with the dying manor. There was a glee to the sounds of the fire: its roars and hisses. Flamespren ran up the wall alongside him, leaving tracks of black on the wood.

  Ahead, the kitchen was fully engulfed. He didn’t mind the heat so far—his Stormlight healed burns before they had a chance to more than itch. As long as he stayed away from the heart of the fire, he should be all right.

  Unfortunately, that might prove impossible.

  “Where’s the cellar?” Syl asked from his shoulder.

  Kaladin pointed through the kitchen inferno toward a doorway—barely visible as a shadow.

  “Great,” Syl said. “You going to run for it?”

  Kaladin nodded, not daring to lose his Stormlight by speaking. He braced himself, then dashed into the room, flames and smoke curling around him. A forlorn groaning sound from above indicated that the ceiling was close to giving in.

  A quick Lashing upward let Kaladin leap the burning kitchen counter. He landed on the other side and slammed his shoulder into the charred door to the cellar, breaking through with a loud crash, bits of flame and soot spraying before him.

  He entered a dark tunnel sloping downward, cut directly into the rock of the hillside. As he moved away from the inferno behind, Syl giggled.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Your backside’s on fire,” she said.

  Damnation. He batted at the back of his coat. Well, after getting stabbed by Leshwi, this uniform was ruined anyway. He was going to have to listen to Leyten complain about how often Kaladin went through them. The Windrunner quartermaster seemed convinced that Kaladin let himself get hit solely to make it difficult to keep uniforms in supply.

  He started through the dark stone tunnel, counting on his Stormlight to provide illumination. Soon after entering, he crossed a metal grate covering a deep pit: the watercatch, to divert rainwater that flooded the tunnel. A stormcellar like this was where lighteyed families retreated during highstorms.

  He’d have dismissed potential flooding as another problem with living in a wooden home, but even stone houses occasionally got damaged during storms. He didn’t blame anyone for wanting to put several feet of rock between them and the raging winds. He had played down here with Laral as a child, and it seemed smaller to him now. He remembered a deep, endless tunnel. But soon after he passed the watercatch, he saw the lit cellar room ahead.

  As Kaladin stepped into the underground room, he found two prisoners manacled to the far wall, slumped in place, their heads bowed. He didn’t recognize one of them—perhaps he was a refugee—but the other was Jeber, father to a couple of the boys Kaladin had known as a youth.

  “Jeber,” Kaladin said, hurrying forward. “Have you seen Roshone? He…”

  Kaladin trailed off as he noticed that neither person was moving. He knelt, feeling a growing dread as he got a better glimpse of Jeber’s lean face. It was perfectly normal, save for the pale cast—and the two burned-out pits, like charcoal, in place of the eyes. He’d been killed with a Shardblade.

  “Kaladin!” Syl said. “Behind you!”

  He spun, thrusting out his hand and summoning his Blade. The rough-hewn room sloped back to the left of the doorway, making a small alcove that Kaladin hadn’t been able to see when first entering. There, standing quietly, was a tall man with a hawkish face, brown hair flecked with black. Moash wore a sharp black uniform cut after the Alethi style, and held Brightlord Roshone in front of him with a knife to the man’s neck. The former citylord was crying silently, Moash’s other hand covering his mouth, fearspren undulating on the ground.

  Moash jerked the knife in a quick, efficient slice, opening Roshone’s throat and spilling his lifeblood across the front of his ragged clothing.

  Roshone fell to the stone. Kaladin shouted, scrambling to help, but the surgeon within him shook his head. A slit throat? That wasn’t the kind of wound a surgeon could heal.

  Move on to someone you can help, his father seemed to say. This one is dead.

  Storms! Was it too late to fetch Lift or Godeke? They could … They could …

  Roshone thrashed weakly on the ground before a helpless Kaladin. Then the man who had terrorized Kaladin’s family—the man who had consigned Tien to death—simply … faded away in a pool of his own blood.

  Kaladin glared up at Moash, who silently returned his knife to its belt sheath. “You came to save him, didn’t you, Kal?” Moash asked. “One of your worst enemies? Instead of finding vengeance and peace, you run to rescue him.”

  Kaladin roared, leaping to his feet. Roshone’s death sent Kaladin back to that moment in the palace at Kholinar. A spear through Elhokar’s chest. And Moash … giving a Bridge Four salute as if he in any way deserved to claim that privilege.

  Kaladin raised his Sylspear toward Moash, but the tall man merely looked at him—his eyes now a dark brown, but lacking any emotion or life whatsoever. Moash didn’t summon his Shardblade.

  “Fight me!” Kaladin shouted at him. “Let’s do this!”

  “No,” Moash said, holding his hands up to the sides. “I surrender.”

  * * *

  Shallan forced herself to stare through the doorway at Ialai’s body as Ishnah inspected it.

  Shallan’s eyes wanted to glide off the body, look anywhere else, think anything else. Confronting difficult things was a problem for her, but part of finding her balance—three personas, each of them distinctly useful—had come when she’d accepted her pain. Even if she didn’t deserve it.

  The balance was working. She was functioning.

  But are we getting better? Veil asked. Or merely hovering in place?

  I’ll accept not getting worse, Shallan thought.

  For how long? Veil asked. A year now of standing in the wind, not sliding backward, but not progressing. You need to start remembering eventually. The difficult things …

  No. Not that. Not yet. She had work to do. She turned away from the body, focusing on the problems at hand. Did the Ghostbloods have spies among Shallan’s inner circle? She found the idea not only plausible, but likely.

  Adolin might be willing to call today’s mission a success, and Shallan could accept that successfully infiltrating the Sons of Honor had at least proven that she could plan and execute a mission. But she couldn’t help feeling she’d been played by Mraize, despit
e Veil’s best efforts.

  “Nothing in here except some empty wine bottles,” Red said, opening drawers and cabinets on the hutch. “Wait! I think I found Gaz’s sense of humor.” He held up something small between two fingers. “Nope. Just a withered old piece of fruit.”

  Gaz had found a small bedchamber at the rear of the room, through the door that Veil had noticed. “If you do find my sense of humor, kill it,” he called from inside. “That will be more merciful than forcing it to deal with your jokes, Red.”

  “Brightness Shallan thinks they’re funny. Right?”

  “Anything that annoys Gaz is funny, Red,” she said.

  “Well, I annoy myself!” Gaz called. He stuck out his head, fully bearded, now with two working eyes—having regrown the missing one after he’d finally learned to draw in Stormlight a few months ago. “So I must be the most hilarious storming man on the planet. What are we searching for, Shallan?”

  “Papers, documents, notebooks,” she said. “Letters. Any kind of writing.”

  The two continued their inspection. They would find anything obvious, but Ialai had indicated there was something unusual to be discovered, something hidden. Something that Mraize wouldn’t want Shallan to have. She stepped through the room, then whirled a little on one heel and looked up. How had Veil missed the fine scrollwork paint near the ceiling, ringing the room? And the rug in the center might have been monochrome, but it was thick and well maintained. She kicked off her shoes and stockings and walked across it, feeling the luxurious threads under her toes. The room was understated, yes, but not bleak.

  Secrets. Where were the secrets? Pattern hummed on her skirt as she stepped over to the hutch and inspected the wines. Ialai had mentioned a rare vintage. These wines were the clue.

  Nothing to do but try them. Shallan had suffered far worse tests in the course of her duties. Red gave her a cocked eyebrow as she began pouring and tasting a little of each.

  Despite Ialai’s lengthy rumination on the wines, most of them tasted distinctly ordinary to Shallan. She wasn’t an expert though; she favored anything that tasted good and got her drunk.